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He sets the prone form in the middle of his bed, ties the kid up with the rope I found on his nightstand, and peels off her hood. From this angle, in this dim lighting, I can’t make out the face, just a mop of curls. But when Marco starts removing her clothes, there’s something familiar about this figure. It tugs at me, ugly and dark.
Then the pants come off—and my jaw drops. “You sick fucking asshole.”
He hasn’t brought a girl to his bed but the little boy I saw in the cage. He’s going to violate a goddamn kindergartener?
Donzelli jolts the child awake. A struggle ensues. But his captive was already subdued. I can’t watch what comes next.
Fury permeates every cell in my body. I see red. My blood burns. I want to charge in and save that poor kid, but this is a recording, and I’m too fucking late.
But I can put Donzelli away and save others, including my pretty Little Red. I just have to move fast.
My phone dings suddenly, jarring me from the computer screen. It’s Ransom with a one-word message.
Done.
So that’s it. Paul Carboni is dead. Good. He deserved it. One less criminal to pollute the world.
But this whole piece-of-shit business is done, too. Today. I’ll make sure. I have enough evidence to put Donzelli away. If I keep digging, I hope I find enough to destroy everything else.
I copy the disturbing footage of Donzelli with the boy. A scan through the recordings on the computer tells me this kid isn’t the mobster’s only dirty secret. I duplicate those incriminating videos, too, then leak fifteen damning seconds of footage from last night to one of Donzelli’s counterparts in a rival family. Anonymously, of course. And I make sure the boy’s face is totally obscured. I don’t want him victimized more than he has been, but what I can’t undo now will save some other child this terrible fate later. His rival is macho enough to think that mobsters who touch any male sexually for any reason should be run out, but still humane enough to believe children are off-limits. Donzelli will be prosecuted and likely offed in prison, ordered to death by his own kind, so no one will care enough to come after me. Hell, I might even be a hero for exposing the truth.
Okay, hero is a strong word, but we all have fantasies, right? Sure, I’d love to avenge his victims, but putting a quick, painless bullet in his brain while he sleeps wouldn’t be satisfying. My plan will see justice served, and he’ll have lots of time to dread his horrible and well-deserved painful ending behind bars.
That thought consoles me as I dash off videos to my contacts in DC, who will undoubtedly find them mighty interesting. Then, bonus! I stumble across a document on Paulie’s hard drive with Donzelli’s passwords. Paulie collected them, apparently, along with the combination of a wall safe in the big boss’s office.
I glance at the clock. The feds will storm in and shut me down in less than thirty, but I have to see this through. I owe it to that poor little boy, Sammie, and every other victim. I need every shred of evidence I can get my hands on.
And it’s more than a job, because if I fail, I’m not sure Kristi and I will ever be safe.
Abandoning Paulie’s command center, I return to Donzelli’s suite, close his office door, and unlock his safe to find drugs and guns, along with blackmail fodder he’s collected on the local cops and the FBI SIC here in Vegas, not to mention Paulie’s sloppy handwritten records of each human trafficking transaction—buyer, victim, and price.
Halle-fucking-lujah! It’s the bonanza of proof I need to end Donzelli’s empire and provide closure to loved ones left behind. Plus, I’ll never have to be Rafael again. Kristi will never worry about my past coming back to haunt her. It’s a way better outcome than I’d hoped for.
Now we just have to make it out of here alive.
I take pictures of everything and send them to both my contacts and my oldest brother. Then I tuck the documents back in place. They’ll get scooped up in the impending raid.
I glance at my phone. Eighteen minutes before the feds descend.
After sneaking out of Donzelli’s suite, I dash back to the eighth floor. Two new guards have replaced Ingram and the big guy. When I approach, they both stand and do their best to act tough.
“You can’t come down this hall,” Vincenzo, an annoying AF protégé of Paulie, tells me.
I do my big-and-bad impression, too. And I’ve been doing mine a lot longer. “Says who?”
Vincenzo and his too-young pal each look at the other for answers. “Well, Paulie…”
Is dead. But no one knows that yet. “Donzelli put me in charge of this operation last night. In fact, I’m the one who moved everything up here from the third-level basement. You want to argue? Take it up with the big boss. Now, you better fucking move. I got business.”
